Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIII: The Severan Dynasty
(19) PERTINAX
NON-DYNASTIC / YEAR OF FIVE EMPERORS
(193 AD: 2 MONTHS 27 DAYS)
Oof – reigns don’t get much briefer than that. We come now to the first of two emperors right on my dividing line between good emperors and bad ones, although I will defend both that line and those two emperors being on the good side of it, albeit only just (hence their three-star and mid-tier ranking).
Poor Pertinax – he essentially tried to pull off a Nerva, but was unlucky to be faced with a more aggressive and frankly out of control Praetorian Guard. Indeed, in terms of his brief administration, he was better than Nerva, particularly in financial reform, but just didn’t get the same chance Nerva did.
Like Nerva (and Tacitus), Pertinax succeeded an assassinated predecessor – in this case (and good riddance), Commodus. Born the son of a freed slave, Pertinax had risen through the ranks of the army, notably in the Roman-Parthian War of 161-166, to a career as provincial governor of a number of provinces and urban prefect of Rome. It was as the latter that the Praetorian Guard hurried to proclaim him as emperor after the assassination of Commodus, the first in what came to be called the Year of Five Emperors.
And for someone thrust into the position, Pertinax took a damn good swing at it. The most pressing issue was economic reform for an empire left with a treasury emptied by the profligacy of Commodus. Pertinax even emulated Domitian, reforming and revaluing the currency.
He managed to pay the Praetorian Guard off their expected ‘donations’ (or bribes) – by selling off Commodus’ booty (in both senses of the word, as it included pleasure slaves). However, he didn’t pay them enough – because of the aforementioned empty treasury – and that was compounded by him attempting to impose some semblance of military discipline on them as well.
You can guess how well that turned out for Pertinax. Not well, in short, as the Praetorian Guard descended on his palace. Rather than flee, Pertinax attempted to reason with them, appealing to their decency and service to the empire as well as the empty treasury – but of course being the Praetorian Guard, they killed him instead and proceeded to auction off the imperial throne.
It says something about Pertinax that he has consistently had a good historical reputation, even almost immediately after his assassination – probably because everyone deplored the Praetorian Guard.
The emperor who ultimately won out in the Year of Five Emperors, Septimius Severus, had Pertinax deified and commemorated, as well as executing the assassins and replacing the Praetorian Guard with loyal soldiers.
Historian Cassio Dio upheld him as “an excellent and upright man” who displayed “not only humaneness and integrity in the imperial administrations, but also the most economical management and the most careful consideration for the public welfare”. However, he did acknowledge that some called out Pertinax’s decision to reason with the Praetorian Guard as “senseless” – and that Pertinax might have been better to substitute a more tempered approach for the speed with which he tried to reform the imperial government.
So I’m not the only one to hold the Pertinax line. Writer Sophia McDougall even used his reign for the point of divergence for her alternate history novel Romanitas – “the plot against Pertinax was thwarted, and Pertinax introduced a series of reforms that would consolidate the Roman Empire to such a degree that it would still be a major power in the 21st century”.
RANKING: 3 STARS***
C-TIER (MID-TIER)
EMPIRE-BASER. Well, he tried to be – and he would have succeeded but for those meddling Praetorian Guards